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He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment, but a fool forever.
- John Tilloston
(Keep the big picture in mind. We're just passing through this world for a few years and what we do with our time will determine how we spend eternity.)
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All print books by Philip St. Romain sold through lulu.com are for sale with a 15% discount through Feb. 13th.
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1 KGS 8:22-23, 27-30; Ps 84:3-5, 10, 11
MK 7:1-13
When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem
gathered around Jesus,
they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals
with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.
(For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews,
do not eat without carefully washing their hands,
keeping the tradition of the elders.
And on coming from the marketplace
they do not eat without purifying themselves.
And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed,
the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.)
So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him,
“Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders
but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”
He responded,
“Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites,
as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
In vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.
You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”
He went on to say,
“How well you have set aside the commandment of God
in order to uphold your tradition!
For Moses said,
Honor your father and your mother,
and Whoever curses father or mother shall die.
Yet you say,
‘If someone says to father or mother,
“Any support you might have had from me is qorban”’
(meaning, dedicated to God),
you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother.
You nullify the word of God
in favor of your tradition that you have handed on.
And you do many such things.”
USCCB Lectionary
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Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain,
2018 (3rd ed.)
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Mark 7: 1-13 (The injustice of certain traditions)
Although the Pharisees are constantly criticized in the gospels, they were popular religious leaders, similar in stature among their communities to today’s parish priests. Their major fault lay in their legalistic observance of the Law, even to the point of hurting people or ignoring human needs in the process. Jesus points out a few examples of this in today’s reading.
• Can you think of an example of legalism in your own experience in the Church? How does this affect your involvement in the Church now?
• What criteria did Jesus employ for evaluating the justice of a law?
Paperback, Kindle and eBook
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Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
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BOOK I: CONTAINING A PREPARATION FOR THE WHOLE TREATISE
Chapter 11: That there are two portions in the soul, and how
We have but one soul, Theotimus, and an indivisible one; but in that one soul there are various degrees of perfection, for it is living, sensible and reasonable; and according to these different degrees it has also different properties and inclinations by which it is moved to the avoidance or to the acceptance of things. For first, as we see that the vine hates, so to speak and avoids
the cabbage, so that the one is pernicious to the other; and, on the contrary, is delighted in the olive:--so we perceive a natural opposition between man and the serpent, so great that a man's fasting spittle is mortal to the serpent: on the contrary, man and the sheep have a wondrous affinity, and are agreeable one to the other. Now this inclination does not proceed from any knowledge that the one has of the hurtfulness of its contrary, or of the advantage of the one with which it has
affinity, but only from a certain occult and secret quality which produces this insensible opposition and antipathy, or this complacency and sympathy.
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